Atheism the Belief

[unbeliever]

And even less evidence to suggest it would be different if we could, the universe is that ordered that scientists even predict the end of it, assuming that they are right.

 

No, no, no!

 

You can predict large scale matters with a high degree of certainty because the non-deterministic events are so extraordinarily unlikely to prevent it that you're on safe ground.

If you ran the universe again from scratch the distribution of stars, planets, earth-like planets, galaxies, galactic clusters etc etc would be completely different.

 

On the other hand you would still have a universe containing planets, stars, galaxies, galactic clusters etc etc, flying apart at an ever increasing rate and destined to eventually tear itself apart.

 

Please try to understand the difference.

 

Image that I leave my house tomorrow and start walking, at each turn I toss a coin to decide which way to go. After a year I could be anywhere in the country. I'll still eventually die of old age.

Edited July 21, 2015 by unbeliever

[natie]

There are no "natural laws" in our observable universe.

Newtons "Laws" are very, very good but they are not "laws" as they do not apply to all situations:

On Earth we know that different outcomes are possible from the same starting point-Chaos Theory.

Universal-Different outcomes always occur depending on the relative positions of the observed and the observation- Relativity.

 

"Everything that happens" is not measurable.

 

There are natural laws of the universe but its very likley that we don't fully understand them fully.

Its currently not possible to reverse time to the same starting point.

If you conduct an experiment 100 times each starting point will be different.

Everything that happens is not measurable yet.

 

---------- Post added 21-07-2015 at 12:40 ----------

 

No, no, no!

 

You can predict large scale matters with a high degree of certainty because the non-deterministic events are so extraordinarily unlikely to prevent it that you're on safe ground.

If you ran the universe again from scratch the distribution of stars, planets, earth-like planets, galaxies, galactic clusters etc etc would be completely different.

 

On the other hand you would still have a universe containing planets, stars, galaxies, galactic clusters etc etc, flying apart at an ever increasing rate and destined to eventually tear itself apart.

 

Please try to understand the difference.

 

And the evidence which proves that the universe would be different if we could rewind to the same starting point is?

 

---------- Post added 21-07-2015 at 12:44 ----------

 

Image that I leave my house tomorrow and start walking, at each turn I toss a coin to decide which way to go. After a year I could be anywhere in the country. I'll still eventually die of old age.

 

And if you rewound time to the precise starting point you would end up in precisely the same place, the only way to change the outcome would be to change the starting conditions. Standing 1mm to the left or throwing the coin 1mm higher would very likley mean you end up somewhere different.

[unbeliever]

What evidence would that be? each of those infinite events was caused by a previous event. The sun for example didn't randomly and spontaneously come into existence, it was the inevitable consequence of a series of events that proceeded it.

 

It's not infinite. Just extremely large.

 

The sun was formed out of a a coalescence of debris from an earlier supernova. There was no compelling reason why there had to be a large star in the right location to explode at the right time to make the sun, nor was there any compelling reason why the right about debris had to coalesce at that particular location and form a star of that size. Furthermore, there was no compelling reason why the particular arrangements of planets that we have should form around that star.

 

The very early universe was very, very much smaller than it is now. It was perfectly uniform. If we lived in a deterministic universe, it would have remained uniform and expended into a vast sea of hydrogen with no features and in which nothing ever happened.

Because subatomic processes have random outcomes and subatomic particles have ill-defined locations, energies, momenta etc; in some locations small pockets of higher or lower density were formed just by random chance. As the universe expanded, these tiny imperfections grew and formed the basis of the large scale structure that we see in the universe today.

This sort of thing goes on all the time and the universe would be a radically different place if it didn't.

 

---------- Post added 21-07-2015 at 12:52 ----------

 

And if you rewound time to the precise starting point you would end up in precisely the same place, the only way to change the outcome would be to change the starting conditions. Standing 1mm to the left or throwing the coin 1mm higher would very likley mean you end up somewhere different.

 

No I wouldn't.

Random events would make tiny changes to the path of the coin through the air and the bounce when it hit the ground and I'd end up somewhere completely different.

 

 

None of this is hard to prove. Radioactive decay is a rather good observable example.

Take an atom of radioactive material with a half live of a day in a lab. No outside forces are able to influence it. It has no way of storing a memory of the events which went into forming it. Wait. After anywhere between a fraction of a second and many years it will decay.

Then start again with another atom of the same material. Wait again. Well what do you know that one took a completely different amount of time to decay.

The universe does this sort of thing all the time. It's not deterministic and the evidence for that is absolutely overwhelming.

 

If you instead take 1g of the radioactive isotope, which would be about 100000000000000000000 atoms, you'll see what looks like a steady stream of decays gradually decreasing in rate as the number of original atoms drop. You'd find it difficult to measure the random variations in the rate of decay because you can't make equipment good enough to measure it. You could be forgiven for thinking that the rate was deterministic; but you now know from the first experiment that it is not.

Edited July 21, 2015 by unbeliever

[flamingjimmy]

Random events would make tiny changes to the path of the coin through the air and the bounce when it hit the ground and I'd end up somewhere completely different.

 

Can you prove that those events are random or is it possible that we just don't understand them fully yet?

[unbeliever]

Can you prove that those events are random or is it possible that we just don't understand them fully yet?

 

Yes. I've updated my previous post with an example of such proof.

[RootsBooster]

None of this is hard to prove. Radioactive decay is a rather good observable example.

Take an atom of radioactive material with a half live of a day in a lab. No outside forces are able to influence it. It has no way of storing a memory of the events which went into forming it. Wait. After anywhere between a fraction of a second and many years it will decay.

Then start again with another atom of the same material. Wait again. Well what do you know that one took a completely different amount of time to decay.

The universe does this sort of thing all the time. It's not deterministic and the evidence for that is absolutely overwhelming.

 

If you instead take 1g of the radioactive isotope, which would be about 100000000000000000000 atoms, you'll see what looks like a steady stream of decays gradually decreasing in rate as the number of original atoms drop. You'd find it difficult to measure the random variations in the rate of decay because you can't make equipment good enough to measure it. You could be forgiven for thinking that the rate was deterministic; but you now know from the first experiment that it is not.

 

That's not the same as replaying past events that have already happened though, that's carrying out the same experiment on two separate atoms.

 

If we could rewind time like a tape and play it back (if we could absolutely guarantee somehow that we hadn't affected it in any way) then we might well find that it plays out exactly the same again. That would be tampering with spacetime though, would it be predetermination if we're not letting time run it's natural course?

[flamingjimmy]

Yes. I've updated my previous post with an example of such proof.

Even if I agreed that you had proved radioactive decay was non deterministic I don't see how that proves the same of a coin toss.

None of this is hard to prove. Radioactive decay is a rather good observable example.

Take an atom of radioactive material with a half live of a day in a lab. No outside forces are able to influence it.

...that we know of.

It has no way of storing a memory of the events which went into forming it

...that we know of. Edited July 21, 2015 by flamingjimmy

[unbeliever]

That's not the same as replaying past events that have already happened though, that's carrying out the same experiment on two separate atoms.

 

If we could rewind time like a tape and play it back (if we could absolutely guarantee somehow that we hadn't affected it in any way) then we might well find that it plays out exactly the same again. That would be tampering with spacetime though, would it be predetermination if we're not letting time run it's natural course?

 

The 2 atoms in this experiment are absolutely identical. They have no way of being different.

 

 

We can to still further to even simpler particles which decay.

 

A muon is essentially a heavy electron. It's average spontaneous decay time is 2.2 micro seconds. If you watch one, it will decay into an electron and a couple of neutrinos in an average time of 2.2 micro seconds, but some will decay much more quickly and some much more slowly like an atomic nucleus.

 

This is a single fundamental particle with no substructure at all. All muons have the same electrical charge, the same mass etc etc. How could the time taken for a muon to decay be deterministic. You can't really think that if you ran the universe over again the same muons would decay in the same time. How would they know to do that? There's no way to store information in a muon.

 

A deterministic universe has to have a memory. If the same things are to happen at the same times in a re-run, the grand plan must be passed down from the beginning of the universe to every single subatomic particle in the current state of the universe. There's no way for that to happen and all our observations show that it doesn't.

Edited July 21, 2015 by unbeliever

[Annie Bynnol]

There are natural laws of the universe but its very likley that we don't fully understand them fully..

 

Human understanding of the universe does not require "natural laws of the universe".

Our understanding of the Universe is based on observation and creating a theory which stands up to all situations, therefore no "laws" are possible until the time when everything becomes explained-this will not happen.

 

Engineers and scientists are well aware that the "laws" that they use have their limitations but do not apply to all situations. Mathematicians and staticians use "laws" in a similar way and as concepts on which to base further work.

 

The use of "laws" in human understanding is as outdated and as innaccurate as the Ark of Noah.

[natie]

It's not infinite. Just extremely large.

 

The sun was formed out of a a coalescence of debris from an earlier supernova. There was no compelling reason why there had to be a large star in the right location to explode at the right time to make the sun, nor was there any compelling reason why the right about debris had to coalesce at that particular location and form a star of that size. Furthermore, there was no compelling reason why the particular arrangements of planets that we have should form around that star.

 

The very early universe was very, very much smaller than it is now. It was perfectly uniform. If we lived in a deterministic universe, it would have remained uniform and expended into a vast sea of hydrogen with no features and in which nothing ever happened.

Because subatomic processes have random outcomes and subatomic particles have ill-defined locations, energies, momenta etc; in some locations small pockets of higher or lower density were formed just by random chance. As the universe expanded, these tiny imperfections grew and formed the basis of the large scale structure that we see in the universe today.

This sort of thing goes on all the time and the universe would be a radically different place if it didn't.

 

---------- Post added 21-07-2015 at 12:52 ----------

 

 

No I wouldn't.

Random events would make tiny changes to the path of the coin through the air and the bounce when it hit the ground and I'd end up somewhere completely different.

 

 

None of this is hard to prove. Radioactive decay is a rather good observable example.

Take an atom of radioactive material with a half live of a day in a lab. No outside forces are able to influence it. It has no way of storing a memory of the events which went into forming it. Wait. After anywhere between a fraction of a second and many years it will decay.

Then start again with another atom of the same material. Wait again. Well what do you know that one took a completely different amount of time to decay.

The universe does this sort of thing all the time. It's not deterministic and the evidence for that is absolutely overwhelming.

 

If you instead take 1g of the radioactive isotope, which would be about 100000000000000000000 atoms, you'll see what looks like a steady stream of decays gradually decreasing in rate as the number of original atoms drop. You'd find it difficult to measure the random variations in the rate of decay because you can't make equipment good enough to measure it. You could be forgiven for thinking that the rate was deterministic; but you now know from the first experiment that it is not.

 

Infinite is often used to denote an extremely large number.

I agree there was no reason but it was the only possible outcome based on the previous events, it couldn't have happened any differently without altering the start conditions.

 

A deterministic system doesn't have to be uniform. A deterministic model will always produce the same output from a given starting condition or initial state but the outcome can appear chaotic and random.

 

What random events, each event although it may appear to be random is determined by all impervious events.

 

You would not be able to replicate the start conditions for you experiment, each time you start the start condition will be different, which would mean you are likley to get different results.